The Spanish foreign minister says Spain and other European countries were told that US whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board the Bolivian president's plane earlier this week. Evo Morales' plane was grounded for 13 hours in Austria after being banned from European airspace. Who's responsible? No one's saying. Yet. [BBC News] "Europe broke all the… READ THE REST

Agreed, it seems some of our quasi-governmental plutocrats thought measly, average citizens were just as cowardly as they were and wouldn't come forward if they turned the screws hard enough. But, to their dismay I believe some of them are slowly learning that there really are stand-up people in this world who'll put their goddam asses on the line for their country (and the world) no matter what corrupt war profiteers try to do to them.

The more they turn the screws on whistleblowers, the more it appears to the general public they only have corruption to hide and nothing more. The GW Bush administration got away with it in spades for two terms and the Obama administration is getting away with it now, but it's withering...

Hiding corruption and misdeeds under the guise of state secrets is slowly falling apart and I'm thankful as hell to patriotic whistleblowers and critical thinkers everywhere for that happening. They're brave heros and I'm very tired of ignorant, coward ingrates who lack the fortitude and honor to do what they did and instead nitpick and diss on patriotic whistleblowers calling them "leakers", "traitors" and worse.

Yes, and it's a shocking affront to Bolivia and Latin America. Social media is currently crawling with images like the attached, claiming 'If they touch one of us, they touch all of us- Stand strong, Evo'; a sentiment that I feel deeply. How dare they punk Evo Morales?!

It's unbelievable how poorly managed this this whole business has been from start to finish. Regardless of where all the politicians were when they put the NSA into place, once the beans were spilled it seems that anyone with a half decent PR team would be told to act 'sternly concerned' and ready to defend America's principles of liberty and yadda yadda. To be running around like Boris and Natacha trying to catch Snowden, this clumsily? Pathetic.

Evo Morales: [smirking] Darth Vader. Only you could be so bold. The South American nations will not sit still for this. When they hear you've attacked a diplomatic —Darth Vader: Don't act so surprised, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. Edward Snowdon was beamed to this ship by Rebel spies. I want to know what happened to him.Morales: I don't know what you're talking about. I am the president of Bolivia on a diplomatic mission to Russia.Vader: You are a part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! [to Stormtroopers] Take him away!Daine Jir: [to Vader after Stormtroopers escort him away] Holding him is dangerous. If word of this gets out, it could generate sympathy for the Rebellion in the international community.Vader: I have traced the Rebel spies to him. Now he is my only link to finding their secret base.Jir: He'll die before he'll tell you anything.Vader: Leave that to me. Send a distress signal, and inform the press that all on board were killed.Nahdonnis Praji: Lord Vader, Snowdon is not aboard this ship, and no transmissions were made.

All of this would be totally different if we really were in a time of war. Like, real war, not Iraq/Afghanistan kind of war. I mean all-out WWII style war, where there really is an evil threat standing on the doorstep that has to be pushed back. But we are not truly at war, not in that traditional sense, and haven't been in decades. We are at war in the made-up sense. And so by extension, mentioning our adversaries, or harkening to threats to our sovereignty, national security, etc etc, ...all the doublespeak rings false.

At one time, for a very brief period, it seemed like Al Qaeda was capable of inflicting great pain on the USA, but now, that is a lie; they are as capable of mass destruction as the Tsarnarevs were with their pressure-cooker bombs made of pulverized fireworks. Sure, it was destruction, but it wasn't airplanes and buildings.

So, the buildup and massive expenditure of resources on security, on its face rings false. Simply in a budgetary sense. A common-sense view of how things are generally going; is the expenditure on "security" proportional to the times? No, it isn't.

Add to that false ring an appreciation of the scope and magnitude of our real problems in the USA. What are our actual problems? Stuff that hits us in the face, that we hate thinking about?

Those are pretty much the top things that really hurt. There are others, but this is a broad brush stroke.

Meanwhile, half of us protest attention to these real problems. Half of the USA has been told to, and truly hates Obamacare, even though it means increased coverage and access to adequate care. Not even a giant leap forward, just a baby step towards better health care. And yet, we resist.

And meanwhile, while we are protesting getting incrementally better health care, very small numbers of people control vast resources - hundreds of billions of dollars worth - that are devoted entirely to surveillance and warfare, both internal and external, real or imagined.